Very welcome to the presentation of our Second Quarter Result today. I'm Ann-Sofi Jönsson, Head of Investor Relations, and with me today I have our CEO Yannick Fierling and our CFO Therese Friberg. We will run through the presentation and then we will open up for a Q& A session. For those of you who are viewing on the web, please feel free to put your questions in the chat throughout the whole presentation and we pick it up after in the Q& A session. Very welcome again and over to you, Yannick.
Thank you very much. Ann-Sofi. Good morning to all of you. I'm very happy to be with you for these second quarter results. I will start with a few highlights. The first positive news we have to share with you is that we have been outperforming the markets with our three major brands, Electrolux, AEG, and Frigidaire. The second point is about our operating margin. We have been improving our operating margin from 1.2% to 2.5% with a highlight which is a positive operating margin in North America. We have been delivering these results in an environment which has been pretty challenging with a very volatile geopolitical environment. Good progress on the short term side of the equation, but we have been making as well pretty good progress together with a team on the ambitions we want to develop mid and long- term. Let me deep dive into the numbers.
First, we are reporting an organic growth of 1.8% mainly driven by North America and Latin America and partly offset by a slight decline in Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa. Here the price was overall positive, mainly driven by price increases in the North American market and in Latin America with a slight negative development in Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa. The market in Europe, as you will hear it in a second, was especially depressed and difficult from an operating margin perspective. Again, positive margin in North America for quite some quarters. We're also glad to report that we're making good progress in our cost efficient objective by delivering an additional SEK 0.6 billion year- over- year. The organic sales contribution was mainly due to North America and LATAM .
Once again we have been increasing prices in North America to compensate for tariff impact exactly as we have been announcing it. In the first quarter we had some headwinds. We had some headwinds in terms of currencies in Brazil, some headwinds in terms of currencies in Argentina with pesos. We have been compensating these headwinds by price increases. I also want to report the sale of our trade brand Kelvinator in India for an amount of SEK 180 million. With that let me deep dive into Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa. We had a slight organic size decrease. On the other hand, the good news on the good side of the equation, the Electrolux and the AEG brand have been outperforming the European market. The market was extremely depressed, lower than in 2024.
The market was predominantly replacement driven with a high level of promotion, so big pressure on the prices. We're also making good progress in phasing out the Zanussi brand, which again was an entry price brand in the past. Positive earnings across, positive contribution from cost savings in the region, pretty strong here. We had negative price development. The market was extremely competitive here. We have been drawn down in terms of prices by competition. However, we kept the marketing investment level at a pretty strong level because we want to make sure that we will be passing the right message in terms of products. Just before we have been opening this call, you could see one of the main campaigns we're launching. I just want to repeat the fact that we have been divesting from the trade brand Kelvinator for an amount of SEK 180 million.
Once again, we used to show this slide here. The market has been declining by 1% across Europe. It has been flat in Eastern Europe, and it has been declining by 1%, a little bit more than 1% in Western Europe. Absolutely no improvement versus 2024, which was already a very depressed market. We are 11% lower than 2019 in terms of volume in the second quarter here. Once 11% lower than 2019 takes it back to 2014 in terms of volume. I've been repeating that the European market is used on organic growth 2 to 3%. If you look at the 10 or 11 years between 2014 and 2025, we are missing about 20 to 30% of the volume we have been forecasting pre-Covid. Very depressed market still in Europe, subdued market.
We did not see any movement in terms of kitchen and new constructions, which is again one of the strongholds we do have as Electrolux. Despite all of that, we kept our path, we kept on investing on the marketing side of the equation. We have been launching successfully the product, which is tough, a new induction hob which is anti-scratch, anti-fingerprint. Very successful launch in the market, which is completing basically the kitchen launches we have been announcing in Germany and in Europe. We're also very proud to say that we have been awarded 16 awards in terms of design. Design remains a very strong trait for Electrolux. It is a trait we want to differentiate ourselves from competition moving forward. I'm also very glad to underline that many of these awards went to vacuum cleaners. Vacuum cleaner, a product we have been inventing as Electrolux.
It is a product we will be revamping moving forward in the coming months and in the coming years. Very big success and achievement from a design side of the equation. Moving into North America, North America definitely has been outperforming the market. The market is down 1%. The organic growth we had in North America is at the level of 4.1%. It is again testifying about the good reception we're having from the new products we're launching out of the Springfield and Anderson factory. Very good momentum from a product launch we do have in North America. We have a positive price movement. We have been announcing price increase at the beginning of first quarter. We have been executing this price increase. We were not followed by all our competitors.
This strategy paid back and that's explaining why we are able to basically report out a positive EBIT for the second quarter. Good progress as well in terms of efficiency. We're glad to say that we have been achieving our targets in terms of cost saving and efficiencies in our factory here. Price lists have been increased and we will be keeping on increasing this price list as long as we'd be impacted by tariff. Our ambition is truly to fully compensate tariff impact through price increases. We had some negative impact from the currency which were compensated by a positive impact on the raw material side of the equation. Just looking at the market evolution here, once again, - 1% is a picture very different from Europe because North America was hit by a high level of inflation due to the trade war here.
The North American market has been pretty resilient in the first quarter 2025 and in the second quarter here with only a decrease of 1%. I am very happy to announce today a major launch of an innovation we have been actually putting on the market last Monday. It is pizza. A few years ago North America has been launching the air fried cooking which was extremely successful here. Here we're announcing probably innovation which is at the same level. Rather than a lot of words, let me show you a short video.
Reimagine pizza night with Frigidaire's new stone-baked pizza mode. The only oven that reaches 750 degrees for restaurant quality pizzas in as little as two minutes. Your oven comes with everything you need to start making pizzas right away. A pizza peel, pizza shield, and stone.
When you select stone-baked pizza mode, the shield and stone are used to create a brick oven atmosphere in the upper part of the oven. That's how we can safely reach temperatures of over 750 degrees. At that temperature, your pizza bakes in as little as two minutes, resulting in a beautifully airy, chewy, crispy crust and perfectly caramelized toppings. Only Frigidaire can take your pizza night to a whole new level. Our new pizza mode is just one option within our most advanced cooking system, Total Convection, which offers over 15 ways to cook. Frigidaire has you covered no matter what your family is craving.
You need to taste it to believe it and I had the opportunity to taste it several times. It is really like in a restaurant.
That's thanks to a unique technology which is allowing part of the oven to reach 400 degrees Celsius in a short amount of time. You're able to cook your pizza only in a couple of minutes. Amazing reception from the North American market. We are available by one of our main retailers in North America. Since last Monday, we will be present on more than 4,000 shop floors through North America and Canada here. Major launch again in North America moving forward. We have quite a lot of expectations out of this feature. Moving to Latin America, let's not forget when you were looking at these numbers that Latin America had an exceptional 2024 year with a heat wave here, a significant level of growth. We were hit end of 2024 by currency depreciation.
We have been increasing our prices right away at the beginning of 2025 and that's explaining why we're able to deliver the numbers you see on this page. Interest rates have been increasing pretty significantly in the second quarter, which has been forcing some of our retailers to reduce the level of stock they had on the market. That's one of the major events and changes in the second quarter for Latin America. Still, very good results above the 6.6% in terms of margin. Moving to cost reduction and cost efficiency, we're glad to announce that we have been reaching a cost efficiency of SEK 0.6 billion in the second quarter, which is taking us to SEK 2 billion for the first half of the year. Again, the recipe is the same as the one I've been describing during the last reviews. We're accelerating in terms of product cost takeout.
We are sourcing in a better manner from best cost countries. We're designing the product in a much better manner. We are driving for efficiencies in our factories. We're taking our U.S. down in logistics and quality. Good momentum here and we're still very much committed to deliver the SEK 3.5 to 4 billion by year end in terms of cost efficiency. We're very proud of that. We are absolutely the leader in terms of sustainability for home appliance makers across the world. We are getting a lot of recognition, significant recognitions. We have been recognized three times by the Financial Times in 2023 and 2025. We just got awarded as well by Newsweek and we got the gold medal in EcoVadis this year, which is taking us among the 5% most sustainable companies in the world out of 70,000 companies. Lots of recognition, big ambitions, big investments.
That's what we are or who we are as a company. With that, I'm passing it to Therese.
Yes, Yannick. If we then move into the next slide. We had an organic growth in the quarter which also generated a positive contribution to earnings, and this was mainly driven by price. As Yannick mentioned, we increased price in the beginning of the quarter in North America to offset the tariff headwinds. In the beginning of the year, we have increased prices in Latin America to offset currency headwinds. These were both positive to earnings. As also mentioned earlier, we had a negative price in Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa. This has really contributed to quite tough market conditions in Europe where the market volume is still very much replacement driven, and therefore a large part of the sales volume is sold under promotions. If we move to innovation and marketing, this was a slight decline, slight decline in marketing spend year- over- year.
This is really a timing impact between quarter one and quarter two, since if we look at the first half year, we are increasing marketing to support our strong brands and product portfolio with cost efficiency. We are on track and delivering SEK 600 million in the quarter and are at SEK 2 billion for the first half. External factors are negative, where the main impacts are the negative from tariffs in North America as well as currency in Latin America. On top of that, we are seeing some inflation on labor cost across the different regions. Acquisition and divestments is where you will find the SEK 180 million gain that we made from the sale of the Kelvinator trade brand in India in the quarter.
If we then take a look at the cash flow, we had a negative operating cash flow after investments of SEK 741 million in the quarter. This was despite that we had positive earnings year- over- year as well as slightly lower investments year over year. The negative impact is really coming from change in operating assets and liabilities, where we had two impacts that were impacting the quarter that are a little bit extraordinary, which is one is the SEK 500 million approximately fine that we have paid related to the antitrust case in France that we have previously communicated. We also had a negative impact from tariffs in North America related to that. We are paying the tariffs much earlier than what we're able to recover them through collection throughout the value chain. Underlying inventory is also increasing in the quarter.
This is partly related to seasonal buildup, but also partly related to that the markets in the second quarter was below what we believe them would be at the beginning of the year, and also very volatile market conditions. This has also led to that operating working capital in relation to net sales is now at 6.1% compared to 5.1% one year ago. If we then look at our liquidity and maturity profile, we have a strong liquidity of SEK 28 billion including RCFs at the end of June, and including the pre-financing of the loan with EBITDA of $200 million at the end of 2024, we have pretty much refinanced all of the maturities in 2025. During the quarter, we have also extended one of our RCFs of SEK 3 billion up until 2027. We have a well-balanced maturity profile and no financial covenants, as you know.
The net debt to EBITDA is now at 3.5, compared to 3.4 times by the end of 2024, despite a weak start to the year in terms of cash flow. We have a target to remain solid in terms of our investment grade rating.
Thank you.
With that, over to you, Yannick.
Thank you very much, Therese. Let me take you through the outlook and summary. In the second quarter, demand for home appliances in Europe continued to be predominantly replacement driven with high promotional intensity following increased economic uncertainty. The market declined slightly, and the competitive pressure remained high. As we have stated earlier, the increased market uncertainty risks delaying a recovery of discretionary purchases in the important built-in kitchen segment. Housing construction and kitchen remodeling remained subdued, and the kitchen market in Europe was weak but stable at a low level. In a longer perspective, it is important to remember that the European market is on a 10-year low. For full year 2025, we reiterate our neutral market outlook for core appliances in Europe.
The increased economic uncertainty in North America weighed on consumer confidence, and the market declined slightly in the quarter with consumers continuing to shift to lower price points. List prices increased in the market to compensate for tariff-related cost inflation at the same time as underlying promotional pressure remained. The demand outlook for the full year remains uncertain as the market price increases and general inflation due to tariff risk have a dampening effect on consumer demand. Consequently, we maintain our outlook of neutral to negative market demand for North America. In Latin America, consumer demand in the main market is estimated to have increased slightly in the quarter. Growth rates in Brazil were lower due to inflationary pressure and higher interest rates. Growth in Latin America slowed as expected, and for full year we reiterate our outlook of neutral market demand for core appliances.
Moving to Electrolux business outlook, Electrolux Group has a predominantly North American manufacturing footprint for sales in the region. With the current tariff structure, we are in a favorable competitive position and continue to implement price increases with the ambition to offset the impact of higher costs due to U.S. tariff. We reiterate that we expect organic contribution to EBIT from volume, price, and mix combined for the group in the full year 2025 to be positive, driven by positive price to compensate for tariff and currency-related cost increases. The cost inflation related to increased tariff is included in external factors in our EBIT bridge on back of a currency-imposed tariff. We stick with our outlook of significantly negative contribution to earnings from external factors. It is important to note, however, that we are confident of offsetting tariff-related costs with increased prices.
Currency remains a headwind, and the impact from raw material cost is expected to be relatively neutral. Growth and good capacity utilization of our factories is key for long-term profitability. New product launches provide us with a great platform to continue driving growth in our focus categories. We are getting good traction from the increased marketing spend and will, as we have said earlier, increase investment, innovation, and marketing in full year 2025. Our focus on cost reduction is high, product cost in particular, but we need to focus on all cost items. We have had a good traction on cost reduction during the first half of the year, and we stick to our outlook of SEK 3.5 to 4 billion in earnings contribution from cost efficiency in the full year 2025.
Investments to strengthen our competitiveness for innovation, automation, and manufacturing efficiency are essential to support growth and improving efficiency. Total capital expenditures for the full year 2025 are estimated to be between SEK 4 and 5 billion. I just would like to conclude on the five pillars I have been mentioning through the last two quarters and just give you an update on how we have been performing versus the five pillars. The first one was improve North America. The first priority we have, I'm glad to say that, I mean in the second quarter we have been outperforming the markets here with an organic growth of 4.1% and we are delivering for quite some time positive operating income in the second quarter. The second pillar is profitable growth.
As I mentioned earlier, we have been losing in the past years too much substance, especially in a market which is depressed and subdued in terms of volume. We had a slight oily growth in a very challenging market truly impacted by the geopolitical environment we're in. We have been improving our market position in North America and in Europe in terms of market share, strengthening our market position here. We did not save on marketing spending. We truly believe we need to fuel growth through basically the new marketing launches and the new product launches we do have in the different regions. We keep on innovating, we keep on innovating in a consumer-relevant manner here. The pizza launch we have in North America is probably a good illustration. Cost reduction and increase in efficiency had a positive effect again in the second quarter here.
We have been delivering up to SEK 2 billion in the first half of 2020, and we're committed to deliver SEK 3.5 to 4 billion through improved efficiency, mainly in the North American market, but across all the markets. Our transformation is critical for Electrolux, and again, I've been mentioning that the best combination would be the 120 years of legacy we do have as Electrolux, the knowledge we do have with customers, with the speed and agility we need to gain moving forward in a very volatile market. We will be increasing our focus on this transformation. We'll be accelerating this transformation to deliver even better results moving forward. That's concluding my presentation.
We will move over to the Q and A session.
Very good.
We start with the opening up for those of you who are on the conference call. I would ask Emberlyn to take over and open up.
Thank you. To ask a question via the telephone, please press star one and one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one. Again, please limit to two questions at a time. If you have follow up questions, please request to rejoin. To ask a question via the webcast, please type it into the box and click Submit. A moment for first question. We will now take our first question from the line of Gustav Hageus from SEB. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, Operator. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I have a question on pricing in the U.S. versus competition in Europe. You seem to experience a bit more competition and tougher markets in Europe, if I understand your comments correctly. Given that we're quite far down in the cycle, it would be interesting to hear what you think the reasons are for Europe and the competition. If there's a link here between perhaps pricing power in the U.S. strengthening a bit and competition being a little bit less fierce there, and maybe some more competition in Europe. If you see a redirection of competition from the U.S. into Europe, from Asia.
Yeah, thanks a lot for your question. I don't believe in all fairness that the competitive landscape is extremely different between Europe and North America. I think we find a lot of the same players across both regions. What we have been noticing is a very different reaction, in all fairness, at the end of the first quarter versus the geopolitical uncertainty and volatility we saw in the market. In Europe, consumer confidence has been going down exactly like in North America. What we have been seeing is that the level of promotion we had in Europe was even more intense than what we had been observing in North America. Moreover, rather than going and buying appliances, the European consumer has been saving actually quite a lot of money. The reaction was pretty different. We are pretty impressed by the resilience we see in the North American market.
On the other hand, with the level of inflation we're observing, one could expect higher impact on the demand side of the equation. The minus 1% was rather a positive view on our side of the equation. I think the strategy we have been exposing at the end of the first quarter was pretty straightforward. We truly believe that we do have indeed an advantage by producing most of our appliances in North America on the North American ground. We have very good launches and innovation hitting the shop floors in North America. That's why we were- well positioned to increase prices in North America at the beginning of the second quarter in order to fully compensate for the tariff shift. Unfortunately, competitors are not always rational. In all fairness, in following us, we had a couple of competitors who have been following us in terms of price increase.
Definitely our strategy has been paying back and delivering on expectation. It has been fully compensating for the tariff impact we have been observing in the second quarter. Now, very logically, because we have been selling some of the stocks in the second quarter, the tariff impact will be even more important in value in the third and fourth quarter here. We are very much ready to apply exactly the same recipe here and increase further prices moving forward in order to make sure that we will be compensating again for tariff. The big question mark is obviously how the market demand would be reacting. The latest tariff structure has been relatively speaking, putting North American producers in a better position by taxing more production out of Southeast Asia.
I think we are pretty confident that we are in a good position again to execute further strategy we put in place in the second quarter.
A follow-up on that in the U.S., as you say, there are probably some inventories and other items impacting now short term. Have you seen a gradual improvement in the pricing environment in the U.S. and promotional activity in the U.S. throughout the quarter too? Do you expect the pricing environment for local producers like yourself and us to be gradually improving also in the second half, or were you already there in terms of the full impact you think, versus non-domestic competitors in Q2?
Yeah, great question. In all fairness, we have been of course observing the promotional intensity during the fourth quarter, the Fourth of July week, and it has been basically at the level we were expecting, not more aggressive than what we had been expecting. We see some gradual movements as well now post Fourth of July. Of course, some of the new tariff structure will be implemented on August 1st, so we're expecting to see more rationality, I would say, in this market in the coming weeks.
Thanks, that's very helpful. Thanks for taking my questions.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Johan Eliason from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead Johan.
Bonjour Yannick, Therese, Ann-Sofi. This is Johan Eliason, Kepler Cheuvreux. Just a question on your cost cutting. I thought it was a little bit lower in this quarter than I expected, and considering that you had a lot of the cost cutting benefits last year in the second half of the year, I sort of assumed that the run rate would be quite high in the first half of this year. Is this just sort of comps, or are there specific actions that seem to be driving more of the cost cutting impacts in the second half of this year rather?
Yeah, thanks for the question. Outstanding question. I think we should not be forgetting that we are reporting a year- over- year improvement, and I think the second half of the year was very strong in 2024. We had as well, I mean, we were ramping up in the second quarter. That's probably why you see an improvement versus last year in the second quarter, which is, relatively speaking, again, not as important as what you have seen in the first quarter. However, we are gathering in the first half an amount of which is SEK 2 billion, which is basically more than half of what our target is by year- end. What I can tell you is, again, we will see year over year improvement certainly in Q3, Q4.
We are not slowing down at all in all the activities we're carrying forward in terms of better cost for our products, better sourcing for our products here. I think we can expect basically the same level of focus, attention, and deliveries in the coming quarters as well. Let's not forget it's a year over year improvement we are reporting.
On the cost subject as well, your marketing obviously a bit better than I had in my numbers now in Q2, but you are guiding for increased marketing cost overall. Should we expect the second half to be on the same sort of level as the first half, or with this pizza launch in the U.S. bringing up marketing costs in the second half to be significantly higher than what you've seen in the first half?
Yeah, I think in all fairness, I hope you will agree with me, we may have been a little bit too shy in the last year on the marketing side of the equation. We have been investing massively on the operational side of the equation. I mean enhancing our factories in all the three regions. Now we have a product out of these beautiful factories. Now we need to market them, and we need to communicate around the features. I think that's only. I'm always used to say that it's refueling the growth here, and you probably saw the new tone of our marketing campaign here with a SaphirMatt induction hob that we have been showing previously here, which is this anti-scratch, anti-fingerprint, a very resistant type of hob. It's a new tone we're giving.
It's extremely important to communicate about the advantages and the innovation we do have when we're bringing to the market, which again are consumer relevant innovations. The pizza feature would be one where we would be cooking actually pizza outside of the stores for people, customers to taste this pizza. That's the way I think we should be communicating and marketing the new innovations we do have here, which are rich innovation. We should be able to take full advantage of them.
Maybe to add one thing, please tell us if we expect it to be significantly higher in the second half. I guess we don't say that because of course in tough market conditions, which we also have in some parts of the world, we will be looking at the external environment. I completely agree with Yannick Fierling that this new innovation in North America is really a unique opportunity that we definitely don't want to waste. Just as an anecdote, when we launched the air fry in the oven a few years ago, we can say that when we turned on the marketing campaign, the webpage with our largest retailer that we co-partnered with crashed at that moment. We also see what a type of reception we can really get from turning on the marketing campaign and we will not lose that opportunity.
Thanks, Therese and Johan. Just to be very clear, we're always looking at what is the return on investment on any investment we're making on marketing. That's something we're certainly closely watching, and we keep on watching.
Excellent. Just finally in Europe, can you see you're closing down that brand? How much did it impact in terms of revenue or growth in the first half, and how will it allow in the second half?
Yeah, I think Europe has been an extremely tough market in the second quarter. We have seen very aggressive price levels in Europe. Again, we were very glad to see that. I mean, AEG and Electrolux were very well resisting, gaining value market share across the region here. However, competition is fierce. We saw some improvement throughout the quarter, in all fairness. We hope that this trend will be moving forward. It is a market which is extremely sensitive to the external environment and we may need to expect some additional bumps moving forward. We're well prepared and we need to really fight on the market with all the ammunitions we do have in order to keep on winning there.
At this point in time, we are essentially now through the phase out of Zanussi. There might be still some, of course, volume out in trade that needs to be sold through. We still have a, let's say, tiny, tiny market share if you look at the external data. From our own sales, we are pretty much through the phase out.
Okay, excellent. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Johan.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Frederick Evason from ABG. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you. Good morning. Maybe first coming back to the pricing in the U.S., I mean, you were, I guess, quite quick on reacting to the tariffs. Have you sort of revised any of these price hikes due to the, say, recent developments?
Yeah, absolutely, Fred, thanks for mentioning it because I said it, it was not a butter spreading type of price increase we made in the U.S. We had platforms which were more impacted than others from tariff. We have been adapting our price list basically based on the impact we were expecting. We had the Memorial Day as well in terms of promotions. In all fairness, we had to adapt some of our prices in order to keep on competing with the aggressiveness we saw around us. As I said, many competitors did not increase prices. I have to recognize that the North American team was extremely agile and fast in reacting to market conditions, which have been allowing us to keep both the organic growth we are reporting today, which is this 4.1%, and keep a price level.
I think the new tariff structure will be fully implemented on August 1. Again, we will be taxing more appliances which are produced today in Southeast Asia and which were benefiting from very low manufacturing prices and commodity prices out of China. That is positive news certainly for North American builders here, and we should see an advantage here. I won't repeat it, I will never repeat it enough. Our commitment as Electrolux is to fully compensate tariff by price increase in the market moving forward.
Okay, great, thanks. Second, and sorry if you talked about this also, I fell out of the call a minute. I wonder if you can talk about what you see in the European market in terms of volumes coming in from Asia. Have you seen any increase in Q2 due to the tariffs or not?
Now what we see certainly is a competitive environment which is getting more aggressive in Europe, and certainly despite interest rates having been going down, the purchasing power in Europe is pretty low. We have seen a movement more towards low price points here, low price points which can be fed in a very easy manner by Asian competitors in the sense that production in Asia is, as I explained previously, significant, significantly cheaper than what we can produce currently in Europe and in North America. That's exactly why I think the decision to leave entry price points, I mean a couple of years ago on Electrolux, was the right decision. I truly believe that with the level of innovation we do have, with the quality of the products we do have, we're much better placed to feed basically core and premium ranges in Europe. That's what we're doing.
Again, we're gaining more market share through the Electrolux and AEG brand than we're losing by phasing out Zanussi. Absolutely right decision. To your point, yes indeed, pressure is increasing, seems to increase in Europe out of, I mean, low price level type of products.
Thank you. That's my questions.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Bjorn Enarson from Danske Bank. Please go ahead. Bjorn Enarson, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Okay, thank you. Yes, any comments on FX headwinds we see in the second half, and also if not, maybe a combination of FX headwinds and raw material for the second half combined, if that's possible. Is there something we should be a little bit more worried about versus the.
First half
in my point of.
Not more worried. I mean, we have had, as you've seen, significant headwinds in the first half on currency, specifically on Latin America. I think the team is doing a good job to offset it in price increases. We've really seen that currency headwind being very strong from the beginning of the year. Yeah, we do see that that environment is continuing. I would say not currently worsening when it comes to the raw material. The main part of the raw material we have locked for the year, so not large movements in the second half as we see it.
Thank you. A question on marketing spend again, should we think about this as very near term negative impact on EBIT or do you get the leverage on the spend quite quickly or how to look upon that? Now, looking into the second half,
I.
Just want to repeat the message because, first of all, we are not spending for marketing if we don't have a return on investment. I think we are really scrutinizing the return we do have on investment. However, indeed we have major innovations hitting the market in the coming weeks and in the last quarter, and we truly believe that it's worth for the company and for the group to invest in marketing right now to fuel the launch of these new innovations and new products.
Yeah, there might of course be a timing impact between when you spend marketing a little bit upfront before you get the return. You don't always get the return in the same quarter. That is natural.
Are we talking weeks, months or quarters?
It really depends on what type of marketing.
We usually, we're not looking at quarters and I think again, we're not looking at major fluctuation. We really want to fuel these innovations. I think we truly believe that. When you are with 4,000, we have 4,000 shop floors on this new innovation. On the pizza side of the equation, it is basically available since last Monday with one of our main customers. We really are looking forward to see basically sales picking up thanks to the fuel, the marketing fuel we are injecting.
Perfect, thank you. Could you say anything about, I mean, I heard what you have said about the market conditions in the different regions, but if you can talk a little bit about the seasonality? I mean, normally we have, of course, a little bit of a stronger market for seasonal reasons in the second half. Is that something we should also consider this year? Are the weak situation in primarily Europe offsetting that? Are there any comments on that? Thank you.
No, I think. Thanks for the question. I would just reiterate what I said previously here. A normal seasonality for us is to have progression throughout the year in terms of sales and in terms of earning. Unfortunately, we have several factors which are abnormal today, and that's what is a little bit concerning us. The first abnormality is the reaction on the tariff side of the equation. We're very confident on the strategy we are putting in place. The unknown is how resilient the market will be moving forward. It has been very resilient in the first half, but certainly, we need to watch out on how these additional level of inflation will be absorbed by the North American market in Europe. As I said, Europe is extremely sensitive to external factors. We have seen that in the second quarter.
If these external factors will be normal, I want to say just normal for Europe, again, without major concern on the geopolitical side of the equation, there is no reason why we should not see basically a normal type of seasonality now. I think it is a bumpy road. It is a very volatile and uncertain markets, as you know, overall.
Thank you. Perfect.
Thank you, Bjorn. We will now take some questions from the web, but we will come back to the conference call for more questions from those of you who are on the call. We have a question from Daniel at RBC and the question is, in the first half year you had a working capital outflow of more than SEK 6 billion. How much of this do you expect to reverse by the end of the year?
Yes, without going into exact numbers, we mentioned a couple of the items that are a bit extraordinary in the quarter, of course, and also then extraordinary year to date because these effects will remain. Just one side comment, if we would have excluded these two extraordinary effects, the cash flow for the quarter would have been slightly positive, just to give a magnitude on that. Of course, we are still having some of the restructuring payments that we are still doing, mainly related then to what we executed last year. Still, some of the cash outflow has been going out this year and that, of course, will not be reversed otherwise. When it comes to inventory, of course, this is our main focus.
I think we have built inventory, as mentioned before, both related to seasonal and this, of course, we will sell out during the second half as we always do when we come into the high season. On top of that as well, it's fair to say that the market environment and market conditions have been, again, extremely volatile in the second quarter and weaker than what we planned for in the beginning of the year when we did the production planning and the purchases and all of that. It's nothing new, I would say. I think we have been living a tough and volatile market environment many, many quarters during these last years.
I feel confident that we will be able to take out a large part of the inventory with, of course, not panicking, not doing any strange sellouts or anything like that, because the inventory is still fresh and of good quality and we have the right products in stock. We will take it down gradually over time as we have done many times before.
Great, thank you. We also have a question from Handelsbanken Stefan Granholm, and the question is if there are any, if we see any early signs of recovery of the new build segment on any markets.
Thanks, Stefan, for a question. Unfortunately, I would say no, despite the low interest rate we have in Europe. We're all hoping that basically construction would be going down. When we see construction overall, we have one number, the basically improvement is lower than 1%. I think it is very much subdued right now and it is hurting certainly our margins in the sense that we have a very strong foothold in kitchen and in construction. I think we are really hoping that there would be a turnaround at some point of time with a low interest rate here. We are absolutely ready to take full benefit of it, at least as a company.
Great. Now we turn over to the conference call again.
Thank you. We will now take our next question from the line of Jeremy Caspar from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Jeremy,
hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I've got one on your outlook in Latin America. In your release today, you mentioned some softness in Brazil on inflation and interest rates. I'm just wondering if in your market outlook you do expect any improvement in market conditions, conditions in HQ compared to what we saw in the second quarter. Any color on what you're seeing in.
The region would be very helpful.
I think few things on Latin America and I have been saying it, I think it's important to repeat. 2024 was an exceptional year because of the heat wave, and that's exactly why we have been guiding neutral in terms of market. I mean, 2024 was very strong. There was a devaluation of the real at the end of 2024 as well. The price increase we had beginning of the year, I mean the higher interest rate in the second quarter, and as a consequence of the higher interest rate, our main customers reducing pretty significantly the level of stock they do have over there.
What we believe in Latin America is that, I mean, we have been reaching a lower level in terms of stock by our customers, and the sell in should be restarting, I would say, at a normal pace moving forward in Q3. I think Latin America is reacting as well. We are expecting in all fairness here, and we just believe that it will be 2025 would be as strong as 2024 was, and we just need to go through the inflation and interest rate increase we have been impacted with in the last month. Again, we took actions, and I think the actions are basically bringing the results we're expecting.
Thanks, very helpful.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question via the telephone, please press star one and one on your telephone keypad. To ask a question via the webcast, please type it into the box and click Submit. Next is a follow-up question from the line of Gustav Hageus from SEB. Please go ahead, sir.
Thanks. Thanks for taking my update or follow up question. I just wanted to clarify, I didn't fully get it if you saw any sequential easing of the price pressure in Europe into July or end of Q2 versus beginning of the year.
Very difficult to say at this point of time. What I said early on is that, I mean we saw a very strong reaction from the geopolitical environment in Europe here, and we saw some improvement throughout the quarter here. I think we saw some improvement especially towards the end of the quarter here. Right now we hope that, I mean this positive move will be holding in July and August and in the third quarter. It's very early to really say anything about the market condition in the third quarter in Europe.
The comment Gustav is on is related to volume. Market volume, not related to price.
Okay, how about pricing? Do you see any of that impact also? Is that isolated to the volume?
Yeah, pricing again, the market is entirely replacement driven today. I mean, with very high promotional pressure and a tough competitive landscape. The good news is that, I mean, on the electronics and AEG side of the equation, we're holding our price index, which is very good news, and we're growing market share on the value side of the equation. That's pretty good. That's exactly where we want to be. We don't want to fight where only cost is the purchase driver. I mean, indeed, we see more price pressure in the European market lately.
Okay, thanks for clarifying.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of James Moore from Rothschild & Co Redburn . Please go ahead, James.
Yes, good morning everyone. I hope you're well. Great share gains and some savings momentum. Could I ask a couple of questions on tariffs, please? I'll go one at a time if that helps. You mentioned, Therese, on the cash flow, the negative tariff impact in the U.S. as you're paying earlier than collecting in prices. Is that to say that the negative tariff cost is not on the P&L? Just to be clear, would the North American margin be less than the half a percent if the full tariff cost is on the P&L, and if so, by how much? I just want to be clear about that.
Yeah, I think Yannick also mentioned it right. I mean, we do see relevant tariff impact on EBIT in our result, which we have been able to offset through price increases that we were proactive and did in the beginning of the quarter. Having said that, you are right that part of the tariff impact that we've had is right now in our stock and has not been sold out yet to trade. That's why we have a higher impact in terms of tariffs in cash flow. That's also why the sequential increase that we will see in the third quarter compared to the second quarter with the current tariff structure in place will be higher on the bottom line, which means that there are needed additional price increases coming through to the bottom line to offset the higher level we are expecting in the third quarter.
Thanks, Therese. We are fully committed to keep on increasing prices in order to fully compensate tariff. I want to repeat that once again.
Just one last comment. I think you also mentioned it, Yannick, that of course we were proactive increasing prices, but then we also had to meet competition in some of the promotional periods. This, of course, we really hope now with some better discipline will also ease over time.
That's great. Thanks. I understand secondly that you're in a favorable position on the tariffs with over half of U.S. appliances coming from China, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand. I understand your aim to mitigate, but if others are not moving then it will be harder. Could you say how many of the U.S. Big Five have moved and how many haven't? What is this 1st of August date? I thought Section 232 was already in place. Bar copper, I guess you're talking about reciprocals. Isn't the key issue stilling out a million?
Yeah, absolutely, you're right. I will respond on the tariff side of the equation for Thailand and Vietnam and Southeast Asia. It will be basically implementable 1st of August and valid 1st of August . That's the first point here on the tariff side of the equation. You're absolutely right. We saw beginning of the second quarter only a couple of our competitors moving and following us in terms of price increase. Now I think the latest tariff structure is addressing one of the main issues or anomalies we had in the past, which was Southeast Asia because Southeast Asia was only taxed at a level of 10% but they were sourcing the entire commodity and components out of China. With 10% only, that was still basically producing at a cheaper cost or landing at a cheaper cost than what we were producing in North America.
Now with a later tariff structure here it is leveling the playground. It is leveling the playground starting August 1 and we can expect basically more competitors to follow us in terms of price increase if there is a rational in that. I believe there is a rational in that.
Great. Just to clarify because I'm being stupid here, maybe you can just help me. I thought that the change that we saw in July or June was that we shifted from a 25% steel and aluminum to 50%. That was not either or then stat.
No, yeah, different wave. I mean the 50% on aluminum and steel is implemented today. That's one part which is implemented today. I mean the tariff on Southeast Asia is basically on August 1st, would be confirmed on August 1st.
Could you remind us what it goes from to, from 10.
Sorry. Good.
From what level?
It was from 10% to 36% in Thailand and from 10% to 25% in Korea, just to give you a couple. Plus the 50% on steel and aluminum.
Great, that's really helpful. Thank you so much.
Please.
Thank you. I am sharing. No further questions. Now turn back to the speakers in the room. Please continue.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much for your attention and the questions once again. I think all what we can wish you is a great summer. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We look forward to see you again in October when we present our third quarter results. We will also have a capital market update on the 4th of December. Okay, great. Thank you.
Thank you,
thank you.